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Only a few concepts in the service literature are as pervasive yet as undertheorized as is the concept of the actor. With a growing interest toward value creation as a systemic and institutionally guided phenomenon, there is a particular need for a more robust conceptualization of humans as actors that adopts a processual, as opposed to a static, view. The purpose of this paper is to build such processual conceptualization to advance service-dominant (S-D) logic, in particular, and service research, in general.

The paper is conceptual and extends S-D logic's institutionally constituted account of the actor by drawing from identity theory and social constructionism.

The paper develops a processual conceptualization of the human actor that explicates four social processes explaining the dynamics between two identity concepts—social and personal identity—and institutional arrangements. The resulting framework reveals how humans are simultaneously constituted by institutions and able to perform their roles in varying, even institution-changing, ways.

By introducing new insights from identity theory and social constructionism, this paper reconciles the dualism in S-D logic's current description of actors, as well as posits the understanding of identity dynamics and the processual nature of actors as central in many service-related phenomena.

This paper is among the few that explicitly theorize about the nature of human actors in S-D logic and the service literature.

Based on the assumption of the service-dominant logic (S-D logic) that every exchange is service-for-service and on the relevance of the beneficiary’s role in the co-creation of value, this paper aims to investigate the effects of engagement in the context of social marketing, where the value proposition is an invitation to practice mindfulness.

A field experiment was carried out with 72 volunteers, using a pre-test/post-test control group design. The treatment applied was a set of strategies to increase the engagement of the participants to attain a better result in five dependent variables associated mainly with the benefits of mindfulness practice. Measurements were made from a profile analysis, and submitted to Mann-Whitney and t-tests.

A large effect of group and time factors were observed in the multivariate test, as well as differences in the co-creation of value between groups.

This study can contribute to stimulate experimental transdisciplinary research in humans, using concepts from S-D logic and social marketing to promote positive behavioral change. This approach is probably more efficient at explaining and improving human behavior, given its complex nature.

There is an ongoing challenge to map the efficacy of e-retailing strategies in building both value co-creation opportunities for online customers and customer value for companies. Based on the service-dominant (S-D) logic, an integrative model is provided that connects the impact of convenience and personalisation strategies (CPSs) on an e-retailer's performance – by offering co-creation opportunities and customer engagement.

The survey instrument is validated and the model is tested with data from active online customers using a novel methodology that blends artificial neural network (ANN) analysis with partial least squares (PLS) in both the measurement model and the path analysis.

The findings robustly support the model and yield evidence of the contribution of CPSs in effective value propositions, the interface between the S-D logic and customer engagement, and the direct effect of customer engagement on tangible forms of value for companies.

This study is the first scholarly effort to provide a comprehensive understanding of how and why CPSs can maximise customer value for the e-retailer, while simultaneously testing the customer value/engagement interface with a new blended ANN-PLS method.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a process model for the role transformation of vulnerable consumers through support services.

The study is based on four years of participant observation at a community-based support service and in-depth interviews with the consumers. Visual ethnography was used to document the process of the consumers' role transformation through service exchanges.

The main outcome of this study is a consumer transformation model, describing consumers' role transformation processes, from recipients to generic actors. The model demonstrates that vulnerable consumers will transform from recipients to quasi-actors before becoming generic actors.

Vulnerable consumers' participation in value cocreation can be promoted by providing social support according to their dynamic roles. By enabling consumers to participate in value cocreation, social support provision can become sustainable and inclusive, especially in rural areas affected by aging and depopulation. Transforming recipients into generic actors should be a critical aim of service provision in the global challenge of aging societies.

Beyond identifying service factors, the research findings describe the mechanism of consumers' role transformation process as a service mechanics study. Furthermore, this study contributes to transformative service research by applying social exchange theory and broadening service-dominant logic by describing the process of consumer growth for individual and community well-being.

This research aims to demonstrate how the circular economy is employed to drive the sustainability of the tourism industry in Krabi, Thailand, through the concept of mindful consumption and service-dominant logic (hereafter S-D logic).

A seven-year longitudinal study (2013–2020) was conducted through four studies from different perspectives, including macro, meso and micro levels of development in Krabi province.

Krabi tourism stakeholders have collaborated to co-create green culture and behavior whereby the value network among stakeholders plays an important role in driving the circular economy in practice.

This study provides an understanding of how the circular economy society has been co-created. However, further research should be conducted in other tourism cities by focusing on the key success factors that drive the circular economy.

The longitudinal study with multi-perspective micro, macro and meso levels of development in this study has shed the light on how the circular economy (CE) policy can be turned into practice.

As the consumer experience literature broadens in scope – specifically, from dyads to ecosystems and from provider-centric to consumer-centric perspective – traditional data collection methods are no longer adequate. In that context, the paper aims to discuss three little-used data collection methods that can contribute to this broader view of consumer experience.

The paper identifies methodological requirements for exploring the broadened view of consumer experience and reviews data collection methods currently in use.

The paper elaborates tailored guidelines for the study of consumer experience through first-hand, systemic and processual perspectives for three promising and currently underused data collection methods: phenomenological interviews, event-based approaches and diary methods.

Although the list of identified methods is not exhaustive, the methods and guidelines discussed here can be used to advance empirical investigation of consumer experience as more broadly understood.

Practitioners can apply these methods to gain a more complete view of consumers’ experiences and so offer value propositions compatible with those consumers’ lifeworlds.

The paper principally contributes to the literature in two ways: by defining the methodological requirements for investigating consumer experience from consumer-centric, systemic and processual perspectives, and by specifying a set of data collection methods that meet these requirements, along with tailored guidelines for their use.

Despite a growing interest in accessible tourism, delivering high-quality tourism experiences to people with disabilities (PwD) remains a major challenge. Beyond a number of acknowledged barriers (e.g. cultural, architectural, relational), the main issue is the lack of coordination amongst the many actors participating in the co-creation of tourism experiences. This paper intends to advance available knowledge on this issue by conceptually suggesting a solution that draws on the concepts of the tourism experience and digital ecosystems.

This paper is developed as a conceptual contribution, drawing also on an illustrative example that considers a tourist with mobility disability as the focal actor.

The results indicate that a digital ecosystem could contribute to making tourism locations more accessible by enabling information sharing and coordination amongst all actors that co-create the tourism experiences. Moreover, the analysis underlines that tourism locations should be designed to be useable by all people, drawing on the principles of the universal design.

This paper describes a path to fostering accessible tourism, drawing on local authorities, particularly municipalities and universities. The suggested solution would benefit from future empirical analyses to assess its strengths and weaknesses.

By drawing on the concept of digital ecosystems, this paper is amongst the first studies to suggest a path to making tourism locations more accessible to all tourists (with or without disabilities) based on technology.

This paper studies, based on the theory of service-dominant logic, the effect of value co-creation practices (linking and materializing) on engagement dimensions (popularity, commitment and virality). The main objective is to analyze the influence of value co-creation practices on engagement at international trade shows organizer association on Twitter.

This paper studies the usage of Twitter by the Specialty Food Association, which organizes one of the top five foods and beverage international trade show in the United States. To achieve the research objective, the authors have analyzed 1,608 posts on Twitter from the Twitter account @Specialty_Food. A content analysis was performed using Krippendorff's (2004) recommendations, and the data were analyzed using regression analysis with optimal scaling and Kruskal–Wallis Test.

According to the results, some materializing practices influence popularity, commitment, virality and global engagement on Twitter. While the usage of some linking practices influences respectively commitment and popularity.

These results provide valuable information for business-to-business (B2B) contexts and answer a research gap reported in previous literature, which affirms that more research is needed about the relationship between service systems and engagement. From a general view, to generate more engagement on social media in B2B contexts, it is recommended to prioritize posts that incorporate live and online events based on collaborative and dynamic human interactions, following by business ideas and business cases.